The new "FrontPage 2002" has drawn mixed reviews, you might say. It makes
web sites, but the picture isn't as clear as it used to be.

Microsoft's FrontPage has 40 percent of the web site market. Macromedia's "DreamWeaver"
also has 40 percent. Among small business users, FrontPage is more dominant,
with an estimated 70 percent of that market. Other web site programs -- a
dozen or more, divide up the table scraps.

We've tried nearly all of them. We've tried web programs that don't even
exist anymore, and when we finally did our own web site:
www.oncomp.com, we settled on FrontPage.
It had a built-in search function and the best technical support we had ever
encountered, which was free. The only thing they'll talk about for free now
is how to install the program. All other questions are $35 a pop. On the
plus side, you can now set up a store with FrontPage and the program tracks
visitors.

Much of the current criticism on FrontPage 2002 comes from developers and
focuses on the bloated code the program generates. Bloated computer code has
become a fact of life, and unless you are a developer it's a minor
annoyance. Many programmers have adopted the view that all users have fast
central processors, at least 10 gigabytes of hard drive space, and 128
megabytes of memory. Under those conditions, what does it matter if the
software code is unwieldy, because the system is so large and fast it's
going to handle it anyway. Sloppiness seems to be the new watchword.

The remaining criticism is related. The complaint is that bloated code makes
FrontPage unsuitable for large business web sites. I think this is wrong.
Our own web site is enormous. It contains 2,269 pages and 1,960 pictures,
numbers that increase every week. Very few sites we have browsed are
anywhere near that large and yet FrontPage handles the site with ease. Even
though we don't use it for business -- we don't accept ads or fees --
FrontPage has to be considered first class for creating business sites.

FrontPage is still the easiest way we've found to create a professional
looking web site. If you want jazzy graphics and music, this isn't the way
to go. On the other hand you should think carefully about those special
effects, because it increases the loading time for the user and makes the
site more awkward to navigate. For me, if a web site takes more than 15-20
seconds to load, I'm out of there.

Speed is a big issue when working with your web site and the new FrontPage
2002 really shines here. When making changes, it used to take a dozen
seconds to call up new pages, but now they come up in two or three seconds.
You think that's not a big difference? Believe me, when you're working with
2,000 pages, waiting an extra 10 seconds per page seems like forever.

All in all, we're miffed about the loss of free tech support but pleased
with the program. If you want a nice business web site, you'll get it here.
FrontPage 2002 is $169, for Windows 98 and up; upgrades are $90. (A 30-day
trial version on CD is available for $10.) Microsoft phone: 800-642-7676;
web:
www.microsoft.com/frontpage.

Internuts

--
www.sciencedaily.com New science
stories and summaries of published research every day. Recent story: A
Swedish study found that running a gasoline lawn mower for one hour produces
as much pollution as driving a car 100 miles.

--
www.howstuffworks.com An
excellent site for kids or adults. Examples: How CDs work; how night vision
works; how fuel gauges work, etc. You might also want to look at
www.waythingswork.com, a site
from book publisher Houghton Mifflin. Not as good as the first site and kind
of a nuisance to use, but worthwhile.

--
www.scorecard.com and
www.pollutionwatch.com
Scorecard lists the main polluters in U.S. neighborhoods, providing company
names, addresses and the pollutants they are generating. Pollutionwatch is a
sister site that provides similar information for Canada. (Editor's Note:
These sites are no longer there. We suspect foul play.)

--
www.pdom.com Get an e-mail address or
register a web site that is simply your own name with a dot com ending.
There is a charge of course, but their prices are much less than Network
Solutions, the company first authorized to provide Internet destination
names.

"Half-Life: Blue Shift," $30 for Windows 95 and up, from Sierra. This is the
latest additional adventure for Half-Life, which PC Gamer magazine in 1999
called "the best PC game ever made." About 50 other game reviewers also gave
it their top rating. This incarnation includes the earlier "Half-Life:
Opposing Force" and a weapons expansion pack.

In brief, something has gone wrong at a government biotech laboratory called
"Black Mesa" and it's up to you to find out what. Keep your weapons ready
because nothing good is about to happen. Up to 14 players can be involved at
the same time online.